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Our Narrator appears upon the stage. He is dressed in his usual clothing which is something between a circus ringmaster and an Edwardian fop, but this time the colors are muted. Everything is somber and restrained.
“Bombast is not the only thing we can use to illuminate the actions of our hero when we delve into a morally complex world. Solemn reflection and cool decision making can also take place in Shades of Gray. This is one of the best scenarios to highlight the advantage of thinking of yourself first.”
He reveals the scene. “While everything seemed on the mend, especially with the Sheriff giving his oh-so-noble and not at all outrageously one-sided and self-serving suggestion to forgive Scott for being treated like a human punching bag, there could be an alternative where Scot makes a decision for his own well-being.”
The wound stung. Scott grimaced at the pain, but he was just as shocked that he hadn’t expected it. Why the surprise? This was a fatal wound, and it was healing far slower than normal. Of course it would sting when he applied alcohol to it. He shook his head and started to get more alcohol when he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. He tensed up. He didn’t relax when he realized it was Stiles.
Stiles had simply walked into his house and into his room. He had stood there, watching Scott take care of himself, and he hadn’t said anything.
Scott should have expected this as much as he should have expected the pain from the wound. He needed to get better at predicting the predictable. It was predictable that if you put antiseptic on a wound, the nerves were going to react to it. It was predictable that Stiles would try to just walk into his bedroom as if the last few days hadn’t happened. Stiles often joked when he was a fan of ignoring a problem until eventually it just goes away. Only it wasn’t really a joke, was it?
Scott reached out and closed the door to the bathroom. Slamming it would have been rude. His mother had taught him that if he shouldn’t be rude if he didn’t have to be.
With the wound covered by a bandage and a new shirt, Scott left the bathroom. Unsurprisingly, Stiles hadn’t taken the hint and left. He was sitting at Scott’s desk as if nothing was wrong.
“It hasn’t healed yet.” Stiles asked carefully. From the inflection of his voice, Stiles was trying to ask different things without actually speaking the words. The only thing Scott could hear was an echo of the cruelty Stiles spat at him at the hospital.
Scott shrugged. He didn’t feel like talking about his medical condition with Stiles right now. In fact, he didn’t feel like talking with him at all. If Stiles wanted to speak about the other things, Stiles was going to have to be direct. Still, Scott had to say something. “Why are you here?”
Stiles flinched but never-the-less produced his tablet from somewhere. Consistent with his normal behavior, he must have stolen evidence from the police and decided to bring it to Scott’s attention. It was clear after Stiles explained what was going on that there was another way into the telecommunication building. Where that tunnel led could give them more information on the creature that had killed the technician and threatened Liam, Hayden, and Deputy Clark.
“Thanks,” Scott said as sincerely as he could. “I’ll look into it.”
Stiles flinched once again. It must have been at Scott’s tone. “I thought … I thought we might look into it together, since you can find the clues that I can’t.”
“I don’t think that’s a very good idea.” Scott had to work hard to keep his voice neutral. He turned away to give a chance for Stiles to leave on his own. Walk away now, Scott thought. Walk away now and we can let it happen gently.
Stiles did not take that opportunity. That was also predictable. Stiles had always been very good at interpreting Scott’s words the way Stiles wanted them to be interpreted. Scott had always gone along with that interpretation, because Stiles had just been being Stiles, which had become the problem recently.
“Scott …” There wasn’t necessarily a whine in Stiles’ voice. It was a plea without making a plea. It was Stiles way of saying Can’t we just pretend that what happened never happened? That was how disagreements between them had always ended before. Scott couldn’t blame him, he guessed, for hoping it would happen again.
Scott let out a breath. He couldn’t avoid starting this any longer. “There is something that you can do for me.” Stiles’ face refocused on the non sequitur. “You can give me the key to my house.” He held out his hand. If Stiles could imply things without saying them, so could he.
It had been the kindest way to say it that Scott could imagine. He didn’t want to yell. He had so much else to think about and to do. He didn’t need what had to happen to be any more difficult than it already was.
Stiles, however, seemed determined to make it difficult. He was shocked at this turn of events; he had the hurt child look in his eyes. It wasn’t quite the look he would have had if Scott had just hauled back and smacked him, it was close enough.
“Okay.” Scott would try one more time. “You’re the only person with key to my house. Kira doesn’t have one. Liam doesn’t have one.” It was a lame explanation, and Scott knew it was a lame explanation.
“I’ve always had a key.” Stiles joked. “I got here first.”
Scott sighed softly. “I don’t want you to have a key to my house, Stiles. Please give it to me.”
That sentence put an end to the dance. There was no mistaking the meaning of Scott’s words, no matter how soft the tone. He had never spoken in this way to Stiles before. In the past, Scott had always been able to communicate a mild disapproval, married to the friendly and comforting acceptance that if Stiles had to do something, he had guessed he had to accept. Those words had none of that forgiveness. There was no anger. There was no accusation. But they were definitely spoken like a good bye.
Stiles wasn’t slow. “We’ve had fights before. Why are you acting like this?”
Scott blinked. “I’m not acting like anything. I’m asking for my key back, because I don’t think it’s appropriate for you to be able to walk into my house unannounced anymore. Don’t you think that we’ve reached that point?”
“No.” Stiles answered, spreading his hands. “I don’t think …”
Scott interrupted him. Of course, Stiles didn’t think that this was beyond salvage. That would require Scott to just roll over like a trained dog. “This wasn’t like time your broke my Xbox controller and hid it under the couch cushion. This wasn’t as if you kissed Kira under the mistletoe during Christmas break and slipped her the tongue. This is serious. This is important.”
“You’re angry, I get that.” Stiles put up his hands in a supplicating gesture. “I know a lot of things have happened.”
“I’m not angry. I’m done.” Scott paused searching for the truth behind that statement. “I don’t want to be friends with you anymore. I don’t want to be … vulnerable to you anymore.”
“Scott …” The pleading accusation in his voice was back; it carried the implication that Scott was being unreasonable. Scott understood that Stiles hadn’t meant to take the fight this far. But Stiles was still acting like they were freshmen, and they were now seniors. Stiles was still acting like people weren’t going to die because of decisions they made. Stiles was still blaming him for everything and acting as if Scott accepting that blame was just to be expected, as if Stiles was doing Scott a favor by even being willing to show up.
“Don’t.” Scott held up a hand. “I think it’s too late to talk this out. Though I guess if you wanted to take another swing at me for old time’s sake …”
“Scott.” Stiles voice broke; his eyes filled with tears, but they had lost their power over Scott. People could only employ tears so often and keep doing the same things before you realized that the crying didn’t mean anything. It was a tactic: a way to get out of trouble.
“I wanted to avoid this. I wanted to avoid the shouting and the tears. You did what you felt you had to do to make yourself feel better; I’m doing what I feel I have to do to make myself safe. We’re even.”
“I’m not a threat to you.” Stiles whispered. “I love you.”
Scott kept his voice level. “And because you love me, you hid things from me. You betrayed me…”
“I didn’t betray you!” Stiles shouted.
“Who killed Josh Diaz?” Scott demanded. Stiles didn’t answer because there wasn’t any way he could answer that. Not now.
More gently, Scott went on. “I heard your heart. I couldn’t ignore the chemo signals pouring off of you. But I didn’t say anything, because I trusted you. If there was something wrong with Theo’s story, I thought, Stiles would tell me. He was the one who was so convinced that Theo was the enemy even though he didn’t have any proof; he wouldn’t possibly cover for Theo.”
“Is that why you didn’t believe me? Because you thought I lied to you about Josh?” Stiles replied.
“No. I didn’t know then that you had lied to me about Josh. I didn’t believe you because I know you. I know you better than anyone else in the world. I know what happens when you think you’re cornered. I’ve watched you lash out at people like Lydia and Derek and your father. I didn’t believe you because you kept changing the subject away from you killing Donavan. You kept making it about me and to what I was. You were deflecting like you do all the time. The words ‘I didn’t do it’ never came out of your mouth.”
Scott turned away and fiddled with the bedspread that had gotten bunched up earlier. “I didn’t blame you. It was perfectly reasonable for you to go after Donavan. How many times did you advocate killing people before they hurt us?”
“Those were jokes!” Stiles’ exasperation exploded.
“You’re a liar, Stiles. You lie so much I can’t tell the jokes from the truth anymore. And that’s why I’m ending this. I can’t have people around me who feel entitled to my trust when they don’t trust me.” When Stiles opened his mouth to protest, Scott cut him off. “If you had trusted me, why didn’t you come to me the night it happened? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because the way you would look at me. The way you were looking at me that night in the rain.”
Scott was losing his temper and that wasn’t what he wanted to happen, but he wasn’t going to allow himself to be victim-blamed. He held out his hand. “Listen to yourself. You couldn’t tell me the truth because I looked at you the wrong way, and you wonder why I don’t think I’m safe around you.”
“That’s ridiculous. I’m just a human …” Stiles stopped, because he remembered what he shouted at Scott outside the animal clinic.
“Yeah, I heard you the first time. Some of you are human. It didn’t stop you from trying to beat the shit out of me, did it?”
“I didn’t know you were injured!”
“So, if I had been completely healed, that would have been okay? Stiles, how many times have you gotten into fist fights with alpha werewolves before?”
“You know I haven’t. You’re not just any person, Scott.”
“Exactly. I’m the alpha werewolf you can throw to the ground because you know I’d never hurt you. You climbed on top of me to make yourself feel better; you hit me because you knew I wouldn’t hit you back.” Scott made a gesture with his hands as if to say, There you go.
“You didn’t believe me. You believed Theo over me. I was upset. Wouldn’t you be upset if your best friend believed some stranger over you?”
“No.” Scott said. “I wouldn’t be upset if it was my fault. I would remember that I acted like a violent paranoid whose only proof was a dodgy signature on a form. I would understand that it’s wrong to blame my best friend for not believing me after I lied to him. I wouldn’t claw the shit out of you because you made a mistake. But I guess I’m just better than you. That’s your go-to excuse isn’t it?” Scott held out his hand once again. “Give me my key. There’s nothing left to talk about.”
“So you’re just throwing me out of the pack?”
“No. We don’t have to like each other to be in a pack. Derek didn’t like Peter and treated him as pack.” Scott shrugged. “You see, I did pay attention. You can work with us to stop the Doctors.”
“Why would you want me help?” Stiles was midway between a snarl and a sob; he pulled the key out of his pocket. “If I’m such a terrible person?”
“I don’t think you’re a bad person,” Scott replied, taking the key. “You’re just bad for me.”
Nothing else was said.
“Lights down,” cries the Narrator softly. “Narrow focus. Sounds off.”
“See? Never let it be said that this Theater can’t do subtlety. Not every ending has to be accompanied by violence and a kick-ass musical score.” The Narrator preens. “Of course, we prefer spectacle, but the little things do tend to get lost in it.”
“Like the fact that friendship is not a suicide pact. You don’t have to go before a judge and get it annulled. All you need is to take care of yourself first, and shed the emotionally unstable best friend who demands you be his mobile existence justification machine.” The narrator nods. “Think about it this way – does this scene prevent a single thing happening in the rest of 5B? No? It does hash 6A completely, but then again, I think that was the point.”
“Until next time, keep your friends … somewhere and your enemies somewhere else!”